Development and Validation of Paradigms Based on the Global-First Topological Approach for Alzheimer’s Disease Severity Staging

Abstract

Zhida Bian,1– 3,* Bo Wang,2,4,* Xingqi Wu,3,5,6,* Kai Wang,3,5– 7 Yi Jiang1,8 1Anhui Medical University School of Basic Medicine, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei, 230088, People’s Republic of China; 3Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 4State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 6Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Hefei, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 7The School of Mental Health and Psychological Sciences, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China; 8State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Kai Wang, Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected] Yi Jiang, Anhui Medical University School of Basic Medicine, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China, Tel [phone], Fax [phone], Email [email protected]: Conventional methods like patient history, neuropsychological testing, cerebrospinal fluid examination, and magnetic resonance imaging are widely used to diagnose cases in the current clinical setting but are limited in classifying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) stages. Patients with AD exhibit visual perception deficits, which may be a potential target to assess the severity of the disease according to visual paradigms. However, owing to the inconsistent forms of perceived objects, the defects of current visual processing paradigms often lead to inconsistent results and a lack of sensitivity and specificity.Methods: We develop two paradigms based on global-first topological approach of visual perception, which avoids inconsistent results and lack of sensitivity and specificity owing to the inconsistent forms of perceived objects in traditional paradigms, delineate a unique detection strategy from perception organization (Experiment 1) and visual working memory (VWM) (Experiment 2).Results: Except for the significant differences of the reaction times (RTs) between groups, significant differences were found when AD subjects recognize small figures due to the consistency of global and local figures in similarity test. The difference of RTs between recognizing global and local figures can be recognized in AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) group compared to healthy elderly (HE) in similarity test (Experiment 1). The memory capacity of AD patients was significantly lower than MCI group. Topological interference effect was observed in MCI and HE group, whereas MCI patients may have a greater difference trend in non-topological and topological changes than HE (Experiment 2).Conclusion: Our paradigms provide a new strategy, which can assist clinical severity staging and linking topological approach of visual perception with pathophysiological processes in AD.Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, visual perception deficits, paradigm, working memory, perceptual organization

Keywords

• alzheimer’s disease
• visual perception deficits
• paradigm
• working memory
• perceptual organization